


Cairo Confidential

by fearoflying



Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, BDSM, Bisexual Jonathan Pine, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub, Down with colonialism, Down with patriarchy, Down with war, F/M, Felix Felicis, Lace Panties, Light BDSM, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay, Praise Kink, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Tom Hiddleston in a Suit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-07-27 10:34:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16217246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearoflying/pseuds/fearoflying
Summary: Jonathan Pine awoke from sleep but the dream still suffused his body, sparking in his limbs. He’d only dreamed this way twice before, and he was rocked with gratitude that the power he half-remembered was still real, that it was still possible for him to feel it again.After the munitions ‘light-show’ that he’d emceed to great applause, when all the hands were shaken and all the champagne downed, he’d had a plan. He intended to cut the generator, break out of the Haven and find someone to carry his message to Cairo, but he’d needed a quick lie-down first, just to rest his eyes. First of all, the intel was rotten, he could see that clearly now. Visions of Jed’s bruised face, his own hands around Corky’s neck, Angela Burr’s department in the scrap heap and Roper’s buyers finding another dealer and carpet-bombing Latakia less than a month from now.Yes, the plan he’d almost begun was dead. But in its place was a cleaner one, without the deaths and mistakes, and an absolute conviction that would allow him to see it through.-or-A subby Jonathan Pine saves lives and brings down the Big Bad with ruthless seduction.





	1. The Haven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emma Grant (emmagrant01)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmagrant01/gifts), [Telanu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telanu/gifts).



> This is the first fic I've written, and probably the only one I'll ever write. I was surprised: it arrived almost whole in my mind, and I worked out all the details over a 40-hour road trip in a weird fugue state, a bit like the one Pine experiences. It's completed, I'll post a chapter a week on Saturdays-ish. I welcome comments and questions.
> 
> I didn't use a non-con archive warning, but I want to say that characters have sex here for a lot of reasons that are not romantic or honest. There are power dynamics that go beyond fun bedroom stuff at work. Please don't read if that turns you off.
> 
> I know this is a bit like a cat you've never seen before leaving a dead bird on your porch, but since it's all I've got I wanted to give this as a gift to the two folks who wrote my favorite stories that I've come back to again and again for probably a decade. No idea if this is your kind of thing, but thank you Telanu and Emma Grant. (If you haven't seen the Night Manager yet, maybe you'd like it?)

Jonathan Pine awoke from sleep but the dream still suffused his body, sparking in his limbs. He’d only dreamed this way twice before, and he was rocked with gratitude that the power he half remembered was still real, that it was still possible for him to feel it again. After the munitions ‘light-show’ that he’d emceed to great applause, when all the hands were shaken and all the champagne downed, he’d intended to cut the generator, break out of the Haven, find someone to carry his message of envoy license plates to Cairo, but he’d needed a quick lie-down first, just to rest his eyes. First of all, the intel was rotten, he could see that clearly now. Visions of Jed’s bruised face, his own hands around Corky’s neck, Angela Burr’s department in the scrap heap and Roper’s buyers finding another dealer and carpet-bombing Latakia less than a month from now. 

Yes, the plan he’d almost begun was dead. But in its place was a cleaner one, without the deaths and mistakes, and an absolute conviction that would allow him to see it through. He lay on his cot in the tent for another few breaths, moving his fingers and toes and savoring a calm alertness and absence of fear that he remembered from only one night before his thirteenth birthday, and four miraculous days in the middle of his last deployment. Why hadn’t this insight come yesterday, before he’d had to lay fiery waste to a village where people still remained? Why hadn’t fate helped him in the days before Sophie—Samira— was murdered, mere rooms from where he had been standing? These torturous questions were also familiar to him, especially from his dreamtime and after in Iraq. There would be no answers. His only power would come from total surrender to the greater plan.

A smile threatened to bloom on his face, despite the difficulty he could see in the days ahead. At the correct moment he brought his expression back in line, stood from the twin cot and paced three steps to his enameled tin basin. He dipped a rag in the room-warm water to clean himself quickly, top and bottom. He scribbled a note on a square of paper torn from his travel itinerary, tucked the note inside his left sock, and laced on his boots. Silently he ducked out the back of his tent and jogged behind the barracks toward the camp’s west generator.

***

When the lights finally flickered out Pine hunkered out of sight and waited, listening to the surprised and random shouts coalesce into a plan. Roper assembled his men and set out along the perimeter. Pine watched their feet thunder by before he turned and strode in the other direction. When he found the right tent, he didn’t hesitate outside: he plunged through the canvas breathlessly and stopped just short of a full collision with its inhabitant, letting his wild eyes lock onto Corky’s. Despite the fact that Corky was in the Haven at all, he was still in the outer reaches of Roper’s good grace, and of the camp. For all Corky knew, the generator had simply run out of petrol again. Pine had intended to pull Corky into a frantic kiss, but confronted the reality of their relative statures he adjusted his approach and dropped to his knees instead. Corky mastered his astonishment well and his expression returned almost instantly to droll suspicion, but Pine gazed up with a mix of hunger and confusion, and began to run hesitant hands up the fronts of Corky’s khakis.

“Oh god. I'm so sorry Corky…Lance... you were right earlier. What you said about the uniforms. I… sometimes I think I’ll die if I can’t… can I please….” Pine’s fingers trembled and fumbled around Corky’s leather belt as he stammered, and he caught a glimpse of the closest thing he’d ever seen to kindness pass across Corky’s face, followed by a spreading animal heat. Corky’s sarcastic drawl sounded _almost_ effortless as he loosed his belt and then took his hands to Pine’s hair, pressing his cheek to the growing bulge in his trousers.

“Dear _me_ , poor old Pine! It seems your love daren’t speak its name after all.” Pine turned in Corky’s grip and moved his mouth along the growing outline of Corky’s cock. “The power goes out and you come running here? Surely the winsome Jed would welcome you again. Another moonlight intrigue…” 

“No, it wasn’t what you think. I sent her away that night,” Pine was running his hands down Corky’s buttocks and up the insides of his thighs, his fingers singing from the rough fabric, “I don’t … I didn’t know how to say no to her without upsetting her.” He loosed the flies and began to pull Corky’s trousers down below his pants. “I never touched her, not like this.” Pine buried his nose in the front of Corky’s grey briefs and breathed in a mix of Bay Rum and sweaty arousal. Corky groaned and tightened his grip on Pine’s hair, bringing their eyes in contact again.

“Well all right, Johnny boy. Have at it, then.” He missed nonchalance by a wide margin, but managed at least to stand his ground as Pine fished his cock out the top of his pants and swallowed it whole. At its fullest length it barely tickled the back of Pine’s throat, which was frankly a relief. He needed tight control of this encounter, even as he gave Corky the illusion of wanton surrender. He cupped Corky’s bollocks tightly with his left hand and used the heel of his right hand to press into his own hardening cock. Corky peered down at this movement like a greedy cat, and began to push into Pine’s mouth with more force. Pine had no trouble staying aroused here; his pleasure had always come from the pleasure of others, from serving their needs and satisfying their desires. Besides that, the portentous dream continued to fill his body with a golden sense of correctness. Here on his knees in the dirt, with this small villain’s prick in his mouth, was the only place in the world to be at this moment. 

But as Corky began to grunt and shift gears toward a quick and simple climax, Pine’s dream sensation seemed almost to nudge him from behind. His task was not over, and could not finish like this. Pine slid a hand up to circle the base of Corky’s cock, and pressed the other against Corky’s thigh to create a minimum of distance. 

The spit-shiny head of Corky’s cock rested on Pine’s bottom lip as he looked up, affecting a blush, and asked in a halting whisper, “Can…Will you fuck me?” 

Corky grabbed brutally at the base of his own cock and blasphemed under his breath until his crisis was averted, then he hauled Pine to his feet and marched him across the small tent while clumsily loosening Pine’s belt buckle. Pine made a show of pulling his shirt and vest off over his head, stretching and flexing his lithe torso as he turned. Corky pushed him back against the cot until he was sitting, then worked his flies open before reaching down to unlace Pine’s boots, but Pine had a specific tableau in mind, and pushed Corky back to clamber onto the cot, facing the tent’s entryway. He slid his trousers down his thighs, then down to his ankles when he realized how wide his knees would need to be in order for Corky’s cock to reach his arse. Here too he preened to distract Corky from any of his calculations; he bowed his head and arched his bare back, round arse high in the air and ankles bound by his bunched fatigues.

“It’s been awhile…” he said timidly into his forearms, and heard Corky stop fumbling for a rubber in his necessaire and take a steadying breath. 

Then he felt the cot dip behind him, heard its springs squeak. Fingers roved his back and sides before gripping his hips and pulling him flush against Corky’s groin. A wet finger traced up and down the length of his crack each time pressing a little harder as it passed over his hole. Pine bore down strenuously. His sense said time was passing quickly, or he’d have preferred to take it slow. It had, in fact, been awhile. Since he’d returned from Iraq he’d chosen the company of elegant women, with their unfamiliar softnesses and wetnesses and their general ignorance of warfare. That is, when he’d chosen company at all. Now, despite the fiery discomfort of Corky’s fingers prying at his long-unpenetrated arsehole, he played at impatience, thrusting backwards and pleading with whines. Corky laughed breathlessly and slapped his buttock.

“You hungry little tart! Can’t wait a minute for this big cock in your bottom!” 

Pine, face hidden, indulged himself in an eyeroll at Corky’s self-regard, but as the head of that cock breached his body’s defenses he remembered to be grateful for its modest size. When Corky was all in, hands trembling at Pine’s hips and zipper scraping lightly at Pine’s bollocks, he held still and shuddered out a deep exhale. Pine was privately surprised at how the man who had tormented him all these weeks with casual humiliations and threats showed at least the basic considerations befitting a lover. He would have lingered here on the precipice, allowing fire to become embers, but his intuition felt the critical moment approaching quickly. He pulled halfway off and slammed back, clenching his fists and jaw. 

Corky spoke more to himself now, punctuating with forceful thrusts: “You like it hard, do you. I’ll give it to you.” After a long minute of this sharp rhythm Pine’s body surrendered, and he dropped his head down toward the rough wool blanket. His cock, which had lost interest, began to thicken again, and he reached back to play his foreskin lightly over his glans. All he could to do now was wait.

The sound of many boots grinding gravel into dirt startled Pine back into the present moment, but his body remained pliant, spread. The pack of men halted outside the tent, and he heard canvas on canvas as someone stepped inside. Now everything began to slow down. Corky, who’d begun to speed up en route to orgasm again, lost his rhythm and came to a halt, but gripped Pine’s hips tightly against his own, as if for modesty.

“Oh my. Army days again, lads, is it?” 

At the sound of Roper’s genial, commanding voice, Pine brought his head up quickly, shock written in his wide eyes. When his gaze locked with Roper’s, he was gratified to find shock mirrored there, despite the flippant tone. Holding Roper’s gaze, Pine let shock transform to shame before a kind of pleading hunger spread on his face. _I want this to be you._ He pushed this thought forward: _I want this to be you_. And by Roper’s dropping lids and rising color, he could see he’d succeeded. An unbidden memory of his school production of Henry IV (Part 1) bubbled up, not as much for the role of dissolute young Hal he’d thrown himself into as for the miasma of confused desire he'd felt around all his castmates. 

“I’m afraid Corky can’t come out and play tonight. He’s got his hands full with a bit of friendly buggery!” Roper called over his shoulder to the team waiting outside. Again, the casual mirth in his voice clashed terribly with the look in his eyes; now darkening to furious, jealous lust. But Corky, usually preternaturally sensitive to his boss’s shifting moods, had perhaps lost the use of his higher mental function. 

Even as Pine could feel the cock shrinking inside him, Corky laid a possessive hand on the small of Pine’s back and shot back in a hiss, “Do fuck off, Dicky. Turns out our Andrew is hungry for some things that you can’t give him!” 

Roper glanced a casual dagger at Corky, then as he returned his eyes to Pine’s and spoke in his lowest register, something unexpected happened.

“Is that so, my boy.” 

And suddenly Pine was coming in his own hand. Three hard pulses filled his palm as he struggled to hold his body still, trying to betray nothing to Corky, but letting the revelation of pleasure play across his face for an audience of one. He forced his eyes to stay open, and with as subtle a movement as he could manage, he brought his hand forward for Roper to see. Roper’s smile was feral.

“Well, don’t let me interrupt your fun. Carry on!” He called blithely as he turned on his heel and left the tent. 

Corky managed to wait until Roper was gone before letting his soft prick slip from Pine’s arsehole. He’d lost his grip on the rubber and had to pull it out separately, which sent a shiver through Pine’s insides. Then he threw it on the dirt floor and sank back with a desolate sigh before standing and pacing across the tent. Pine quickly wiped his palm as best he could on the inside of his briefs and pulled his trousers back up to conceal the spreading evidence. At his foot locker Corky had fished out a pack of cigarettes and appeared to be struggling with the impulse to pour himself a real drink before settling on a small bottle of tonic water. He spoke with his back still to Pine, in a tone of flat futility. 

“You might stay for another go.”

Pine pulled his vest and shirt back on and paused with a hand on Corky’s shoulder so Corky could see fear and horror on his face before he left. “I’m sorry, I really can’t….” He slipped out the back of Corky’s tent like a man who fears his most abject secret has just been revealed. As he hurried silently away he heard Corky groan in frustration.

***

Pine knew he’d bought himself a little latitude, that Corky would smoke and brood and wank in his tent to avoid the other men’s teasing. He also knew he’d bollocksed up the generator sufficiently, and with enough subtlety, to keep the camp dark, and to keep the fence from going live, for a half hour or more. They might suspect mischief, or they might just assume that dust got into the contacts and air filters and fuel line the way it gets into everything else in the high desert. Nothing would cast suspicion on him if he could make it back to his quarters without being seen; he already had the better part of an alibi. But his life hung on two very different, very important conversations in the next half hour, and he had a lot of ground to cover between them. He found the darkest spot on the steepest stretch of perimeter, and snipped a low passage through the chain-link fence. 

Pine jogged downhill to the single track road that wound out of the town he’d just razed with Roper’s hellish arsenal. He reached the road just as a man and young boy rounded the corner. Pine approached, palms raised like white flags. The man was pulling a wheeled pallet that bore a body covered by a blanket. The boy had an automatic rifle around his neck. Their faces were twin masks of grief. The boy trained his rifle up at Pine’s heart, and the man moved to block his path.

“Who are you?” He asked in English. Pine dropped to his knees for the second time that night and spoke haltingly in what present tense Arabic he could remember.

 _“I am Jonathan. I am English. I work at the camp, but I am here to stop the bombs. I know what happen to your town because I help destroy it. I plead your forgiveness.”_ He bowed to the road and brought his joined palms to the crown of his head. Silence stretched out. Only the continuing sense of confirmation he retained from his dream kept Pine from losing the thread entirely. Confronted with the human consequences of the grotesque display he’d conducted earlier, his insides were roiling. After an infinite moment, he felt a hand on his shoulder, lightly pulling up. 

“Well I can’t offer forgiveness on behalf of a town” the man said, again in English, “but tell me what you are doing here tonight.” From his accent Pine realized that the man was Turkish, and must have also received an English education. In addition to grief Pine was now gripped with embarrassment, but the man had understood him and seemed to accept Pine’s amateur Arabic as a form of crude diplomacy. He sat back on his heels and looked up as hot tears rolled down his cheeks. The boy’s face was stern, but his weapon now pointed at the earth.

“The weapons we used tonight were only a taste of what’s being sold here. There’s enough napalm to destroy all of Syria for a thousand years. But I think I can stop the Englishman who’s selling them. Not just today’s deal, but forever. I know you want to talk to him, to show him what he’s done to your family, but I can assure you that the only thing waiting for you at the camp is certain death for you and your boy. Will you please help me instead?” The man nodded curtly once, meaning only for Pine to continue.

“I have a message I need to send to a contact in Cairo, at the Nefertiti hotel. If my contact gets this message, they will be able to find the weapons, arrest the Englishman, and disband the camp. I was on my way to the taxi stand to find a driver who could take the message. Perhaps I could entrust it to you and your son? If they find I am missing, they will kill me and the bombings will continue.” Pine listened to himself incredulously. After all the months of subterfuge, to tell the truth so simply to a complete stranger made him feel drunk. But he had to trust the dream instinct that moved through him; it was all he had. And right now he believed that it was precisely because of his bizarre confession, and the risky favor he was asking, that the man and his son would help him. If he had said less, or made himself less vulnerable, they would have walked on by. He was sure of that. And he also realized that after these minutes spent prostrating himself, if he went on foot all the way to the taxis in the market beyond the refugee encampment, the fence would be live by the time he came back. This was the eye of the needle. 

The man nodded again, this time in acquiescence, and glanced at his son, who watched him expectantly. “First we will carry your message. Then we will bury the boy’s grandmother. You are most probably mad, but I see real hope in your eyes. We haven’t known hope here in some time.” Pine hurried to loosen his boot and fish out the slightly sweaty square of paper. Then he stood up and pulled a wad of Corky’s cash from his pocket, peeling Turkish lire and Egyptian pounds into the man’s hand and topping them with the folded note.

“Half is for you, please give half to the driver. And tell him that there will be three hundred more for him at the hotel. The room number of my contact is written on the note.” The man nodded a last time and handed the stack of paper to the boy, before wheeling the cart around and setting off in the direction from which he’d arrived. Pine didn’t have time to watch him go or worry if he’d made a mistake. He chased a tingling sensation up the rocky hill face and threaded himself back through the low hole in the fence. The darkness continued to hold.  
***

The shouts of Roper’s crew were concentrated around the disabled generator, but given that Pine planned to pay a visit to the man’s tent, he waited to hear Roper’s own booming voice from the top of the hill before leaving the shadows for a moonlit run. Quickly he found the largest tent in the center of the sleeping village. He slid through the canvas flap and stood at the entryway just as Jed turned and caught sight of him. She gasped and rushed to him, perhaps intending to throw her arms around him, but a closer look at his face pulled her up short. Pine was startled to see a reddening handprint on her cheek, but said nothing as he imagined his own appearance in her eyes: clothes filthy, particularly the knees, sweat stains, hair a riot from rough handling, tear tracks across his cheeks and the swelling of his lips only now beginning to diminish. 

She brought her fingertips to rest on his mouth instead of kissing him and asked, distressed, “What happened to you?”

Jed was neither naive nor stupid. She was asking him who, not what. He looked away with an embarrassed smile, uncomfortably aware of performing, even as he wished to feel natural. The wetness and tenderness that lingered between his legs were reminders of the strange series of events he’d set in motion. Now if he held the golden thread tightly he might survive and even bring Roper down, but he’d probably never be able to say how he did it, or explain why he made these choices. It was a lonely feeling. At this moment his instinct said discretion. He trusted Jed, and he was tempted to say he loved her, but anything he could tell her would weigh against her safety. He met her gaze again with resolve.

“I promise I will tell you everything when we are far away from here. Right now I can only say that I will get you out of here. But I need you to agree to do something.”

“Anything, Jonathan.” 

“Don’t look at me, don’t notice me, and leave without a fight if Roper tells you to go. I will come to you wherever you are as soon as I’m sure you are safe from him, but until then I am just another guy who works for your boyfriend; terribly sorry, I must have forgotten your name.”

She nodded hard, eyes serious. Pine ran his hand around the downy back of her neck and brought their foreheads to touch gently. 

“I promise we’ll be together soon,” he said, almost crooning.

“Then can we try peaceful and dull for awhile?” her low voice tender, and they swayed together for a moment.

“I'll dream of it,” he whispered, and suddenly, with a loud hum and a series of pops that cascaded downhill, the floodlights powered on. Jed kissed him lightly on the forehead and shoved him toward the door. His last silent jog was circuitous, as he dodged voices and bootsteps. When he was safely inside his own quarters, he wiped his face clean with the rag and combed his hair into submission. He watched his image return to perfect neutrality in the mirror before undressing, wiping the come from between his legs, and collapsing atop his cot, where the golden buzz of conscious fate permeated his body once more. He slept inside his dream.

***


	2. The Road to Cairo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The convoy is not halted in Turkey. Roper and Pine make their way back to the Nefertiti hotel, raising the stakes to their game along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a completed story, I'm posting a chapter a week on Saturdays-ish. This one came early. I welcome comments and questions.
> 
> I didn't use a non-con archive warning, but I want to say that characters have sex here for a lot of reasons that are not romantic or honest. There are power dynamics that go beyond fun bedroom stuff at work. Please don't read if that turns you off.

Pine woke with a moment of fear that the dream might have left him, but as he settled his nerves he felt the enveloping warmth and saw, in his mind, the path before him. He had not been deserted. As he walked into the communications tent, thrumming with his fateful feeling, he kept his eyes low and his posture diminished. Of the four people Roper suspected of betraying him, he was the first to arrive. He suspected this would count in his favor. Tech-inclined mercenaries sat behind banks of screens, some analyzing different views of the convoy, others operating drones that followed the lorries and surveyed the surrounding area as they made for the border. A few heads nodded at him, but no one said a word until Roper walked in, a teacup of coffee in hand and manic energy radiating from his taut frame. 

“Ah, Andrew, good morning! I trust you slept well. Here for the test of mettle?” 

“Yes, very well, sir, thank you. Looking forward to it.” Pine wasn’t sure it was possible to overplay his docile simpering here; Roper seemed to devour it. He stepped to Pine’s side and laid a heavy arm across his shoulders. 

Roper spoke in an undertone that rumbled through their points of contact: “You surprised me last night, son. I’m still not quite sure what you’re playing at. I believe we’re going to figure out quite a lot this morning.” 

Pine turned and looked up at Roper through his lashes. He felt like a deer baring his throat for a panther, but his sense of certainty remained.

“I’m glad you saw, sir.” His voice was as soft as a lick. He cast his eyes down again but caught the flare of Roper’s pupils before he did. The contact between their bodies grew unbearably warm. 

“That’s terrific news, Andrew! Glad to hear it,” Roper said to the room in his broadcaster’s voice. “Here, have a seat.” He pulled out what Pine guessed was the shortest, hardest stool in the building and gave the seat a pat. Pine suspected a touch of sadism here and wondered if Roper had procured the stool with just this in mind. Roper was watching his face hungrily for any sign of discomfort. Pine’s arse really wasn’t that tender after last night’s interrupted coitus, but he gave a good wince at the little twinge, and followed it with a brave smile. The look Roper returned him was absolutely indecent. 

Roper was still hovering over Pine in a way that felt both menacing and pornographic when Corky walked into the tent. His face blanched at the sight of them. 

“Corky. Just in time.” 

The words were carved in ice; a couple heads peered up from computers, then tucked back down. Roper dropped a hand on Pine’s shoulder and let the fingers spread wide. Just then, Jed walked into the tent. True to her word she barely glanced at Pine before turning her gaze back and forth between Corky and Roper, trying to decode the tense, wordless conversation.

“Well hello, gentlemen…” She tried gamely.

“Hello, Jed, darling. Find yourself a seat, we’ll begin shortly.” Roper never looked her way. Jed sat in a wheeled office chair and cast a puzzled look at Corky, whose smile attempted to reassure but came out mangled. And into this radioactive atmosphere arrived Sandy Langbourne. He took a quick look around and walked immediately to the farthest corner to sit with the drone pilots. 

“Well, now. The gang’s all here. Can you bring the aerial footage on the main screen, please, Jasper?” The trucks trundled down a sepia road in a storm of their own dust, plodding inexorably toward the Syrian border, but Roper wasn’t watching. His eyes jumped from face to face, the four intimates who might have sold him out, might be selling him out in this very moment. He was expecting the convoy to be halted. He was expecting guilt to betray his betrayer. Jed looked bemused. Corky looked dejected. Langbourne looked constipated, but that was normal. And Pine, well… Pine sat up straight at the edge of his little seat with his palms on his thighs, cheerful optimism on his face, and what looked like a large erection against his left leg. In a word, he looked excited. 

Roper’s plan was not going according to plan. He sat beside Pine in a taller, softer chair and inclined his head to speak quietly.

“Have you had your eyes on the ball, my boy?” Pine shifted slightly in his seat.

“I think so, sir.”

“And where is it now?”

“The shipment’s not in the convoy, is it, sir?” Pine’s admiring tone managed to convey just how clever he thought this was. Roper just smirked at him and returned his hand to Pine’s shoulder. Time plodded by. The geolocation dots appeared closer and closer to the border at regular intervals until finally the trucks crossed into Syria one by one without incident. Langbourne whooped once with excitement, and some of the soldiers applauded. Roper raised an eyebrow at Langbourne’s outburst, then he was up and making plans.

“Corky, you’ll escort Jed back to Sa Fortaleza. The car is ready when you are.” Corky stared mutinously at Pine, but Jed just smiled and pecked Roper on the cheek before they left the tent together. “We’re for Cairo. Andrew, you’ll ride with me.”

***

Pine slid the last of his few possessions into a duffel and sat on the edge of his cot, head in his hands. Last night the golden dream had buoyed him up from the rational thought that he would probably be discovered and die. Now he felt the opposite: he needed to pull a giddy and premature sense of triumph back down to earth. His blood was loud in his ears. The day was hot and still. Sweat prickled his sensitized skin. He pressed the heels of his hands into his forehead and slowed his breath. He attempted to focus on the path ahead, one precise step at a time. Sophie came to mind, as she often did. He let his futile wish come and go — to have been shown how to spare her life. Perhaps if he hadn’t tried so hard to be the prince but instead allowed himself to be the damsel…a shiver rolled out from his core through his limbs. When his eyes opened again a minute later he felt blank and cool. Pine stood, shouldered his bag, and walked out without a backward look.

***

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicles were completely overkill for the drive to the airport: No one was going to shoot at them, and the road was long, but well-maintained. Pine obviously kept this to himself. He understood why Roper had him climbing into the 5 tonne beast, and equally why he was the only passenger in the massive rear compartment of it when there were two other vehicles in their caravan similarly underloaded: what’s the point of buying toys if you’re not going to play with them? A thick-necked Croat in wraparound Foakleys sat in the driver’s seat and made no sign of acknowledgement. Pine could see Roper pointing and shouting gleefully as cargo was packed and reshuffled. Finally the engines roared, and as he watched the first truck pull forward through a cloud of dust, Roper jumped in to the front seat, breathless and boisterous.

“Daylight’s burning, Marušić! And let’s try and spare the goats today!” 

Pine gripped the handrail over his head as they bumped and turned down a steep grade toward the Haven’s main gate. Roper gave a half-wave out the window to the armed guards and the gate lifted. They picked up speed on the open road, and the grinding of the wheels and the hum of the motor reverberated inside the empty interior of the vehicle so that Roper had to shout back at him.

“Sorry it’s a bit of a rough ride back there, Andrew!” He looked not sorry in the slightest. “Brings you back, though, eh, soldier?” 

Pine had never been alone in the back of a military vehicle this size during the war, but he had often conducted conversations heavy with innuendo, so he smiled and nodded at Roper, who had turned in his seat and was watching Pine with open, lewd interest. 

“Explosive performance you gave last night! Think you can handle an encore tomorrow when we close the deal with Barghati?” Roper chuckled as he climbed out of his seat and made for Pine, with a grey leather dossier under one arm. “There are some details for our meeting I want to go over with you,” he said at top volume for the dubious benefit of Marušić. Roper settled beside him on the unupholstered bench, invading his space. He opened the folder and placed it between them, then wrapped an arm behind Pine and rested his hot hand on the nape of his neck. 

“I see you now, my boy. I was starting to wonder; who is this Jonathan Pine, and just what is he _after_? Never trust someone without an appetite, I say.” He was speaking loudly into Pine’s ear, but in the din of the road it passed for a whisper. “But with you it’s not a question of appetites, is it? No, with you it’s a hunger. Craving to be the best. Maybe Daddy didn’t tell you you were a good boy.” In the dim interior Roper’s pale eyes gleamed. “You need to be a good boy for Daddy, don’t you?” 

Roper’s hand tightened on the scruff of Pine’s neck so he could only nod slightly. He put the rest of his ‘yes’ into his wide eyes, a look of pure submission. He was already sweating in the close heat, and Roper’s grip on his neck was slippery. 

“Widen your legs,” Roper rumbled and Pine’s thighs slid apart. “Arch your back.” Pine tipped his hips forward and puffed his chest out, but Roper kept pressing his head down so Pine had to rest his forearms on his thighs. Roper held the binder up with his free hand, creating a cursory privacy curtain Pine felt sure could only draw attention to this funny business if Marušić looked in the mirror. He might be watching now; through the sunglasses it was impossible to tell. Roper ran his fingertips down Pine’s spine. Pine’s shirt stuck to his back in damp lines where fingers had passed. Roper unfastened the top button of Pine’s trousers, then grabbed the back of his waistband and pulled to make space. He made an exploratory reach on the outside of Pine’s briefs, and Pine pushed his arse back to meet the contact.

“Stay. _Still_.” Roper hissed, and pinched tender flesh without tenderness. Pine bore it unflinchingly, breath steady. Then Roper reached up and rubbed his fingers through Pine’s sweaty hair before pushing his hand under the elastic of Pine’s pants. Pine closed his eyes as the damp fingertips slid between his cheeks. Unlike Corky, who’d teased first, Roper found his pucker immediately and forcefully.

“It’s difficult to be good isn’t it, my boy?” 

He pressed a digit in and Pine’s eyes flared open. The sweat was not lube, and his hole was still tender. He nodded vigorously, but Roper raised an eyebrow, unsatisfied. What was he supposed to say? His mind was empty. Roper abruptly thrust two fingers into him as far as he could.

 _“Daddy!”_ Pine shouted before he could stop himself. He looked up immediately to see if Marušić had heard him, but there was no way to tell. “Yes, Daddy,” he said again to Roper’s ear and Roper beamed. The word felt awkward in his mouth. He couldn’t remember ever saying it before. His own father had been Da to him, and had died before Pine had scrubbed the Irish from his diction. He’d once had a lover he’d called ’Sir,’ both professionally and recreationally. It had pleased them both for a time. The intrusion deepened until Roper found his prostate, and then he rubbed it relentlessly. Minutes passed. He watched Pine’s face until he saw what he was looking for: softening surrender and the glow of arousal. 

“I want you to stay perfectly still. Your feet are not to move an inch until we arrive. I will have my eye on you. If you do this well I’ll have a few other tasks for you tonight. And if I’m satisfied, you may be rewarded. Hold this.” Roper placed the open dossier in Pine’s hands, then abruptly pulled his fingers from inside Pine. He cupped Pine’s half-hard cock through his trousers and wiped his fingers on the rough khaki. Pine looked down at his crotch, but Roper grabbed his neck and hauled his head back up to its neutral position. 

“There’s a good lad,” he spoke into Pine’s ear with a crooked grin, and stood to take his place in the passenger seat. Now in his public voice he pronounced “Do study up, Andrew! Quite a lot to take in before tomorrow!” In the front seat, Roper started making calls, arranging their arrival. One call was to a Freddie. Hamid, Pine surmised, an unruly flash of hatred passing through his rigid body. He breathed til it subsided. Nothing to do but put one foot in front of the next, and trust his instincts as they arrived. Best to deal with what was in front of him now. 

Even at a glance he could see that this dossier was a motherload, not just an ersatz modesty blind. In his hands were updated versions of the documents he’d found in Roper’s locked office in Majorca, that had led to so much trouble. Here were short bios of the buyers, a detailed timetable for the next several days’ meetings, and a combined official and unofficial manifesto of the containers, with Port of Istanbul customs stamps. It seemed that Roper was seriously distracted, or taking a serious gamble in trusting him. If Pine could keep this with him just until they got to their rooms… if his note had arrived at the Nefertiti hotel…

Pine closed his eyes and gathered himself. The air around him, already thick with diesel and hot desert dust, was now also redolent of his own body. The nostalgic combination pleased him. Even discounting the sensations of the dream that continued to comfort him, or the memories of his wartime sex life that kept bubbling up, he was made for this job. Physical endurance, a high tolerance for boredom and discomfort, and a lifetime of service to the unreasonable with uncomplaining dignity— these were his strengths. He wouldn’t budge an inch.

***

In the outer reaches of Kasimli’s sprawl, the caravan pulled into what looked like a parched grain field, except for the paramilitary guards walking the perimeter and the jet idling in the center. Pine sat perfectly still and straight til they came to a halt and the engine died. Roper turned back as an afterthought from outside the vehicle.

“Let’s go, Andrew.” 

Pine sagged and stretched as soon as Roper slammed his door. It had been five hours. The flight was barely long enough for Roper, Langbourne, and Pine to take turns in the restroom changing out of their military drag. Pine scrubbed his neck and face as best he could, and tucked the dossier into his duffel bag.

On a private airstrip outside Cairo, a black sedan with tinted windows waited for them. Tabby and Frisky piled their luggage in the trunk. Tabby drove, with Frisky shotgun. Pine, still stiff from his feat of endurance, in his light grey suit wrinkled from the duffel, sat between Roper and Langbourne, staring straight ahead. Langbourne kept peering at him as if trying to work out a tricky bit of algebra. Roper grinned out the window as the city grew denser, the traffic louder, occasionally knocking his knee into Pine’s.

***

The reservations were in Andrew Birch’s name. Pine breathed out a tightness in his chest when he did not recognize the concierge, a young Egyptian woman whose name-tag read Mosi. She smiled at him with all hospitality but gave no sign of collusion when he spoke his name, so his relief doubled when he saw at the bottom of a stack of large gold room keys one that bore the number 3323. His room. Someone had received his message. 

He distributed the rest among Roper’s men. Tabby remained in the lobby. The others rode together to the second floor where the depth of the blue walls engulfed Pine frighteningly, deliciously, in memories of his years of service to the Nefertiti Hotel. Langbourne followed the numbers down the west corridor toward his room. Roper dismissed Pine with a narrowed- eye leer: they’d meet Freddie Hamid in the bar in an hour, and take a ride to Freddie’s. Frisky took his post by the entryway, settling into long stillness on his feet like a ruminant animal. As the door closed, Pine caught a glimpse of the Hatshepsut suite’s cool, brutal floor. The grey folder remained hidden in his bag.

***  
Room 3323 was at the far east end of the top floor between the stairs and the lift. It was the smallest, and by tradition the last to be booked, and unless there was an event or abnormally high occupancy, staff would use Room 3323 for private breaks, whether one needed five minutes alone, a nap, or an hour with a married guest whose spouse was asleep downstairs. Stepping inside was the closest thing Pine could imagine to entering a childhood bedroom after a long absence: it was tidier and emptier than in his memories, but it returned him to himself in a simpler, sweeter form. Had he been happy here? Even the dramas he’d played out here had been child-size, like a bruised knee. Sophie’s death had marked the end of that time. 

Now he closed the door quietly and took it in. The walls were a lighter shade of the hallways’ rich, Egyptian blue. The brocade blinds had been pulled open, and the sheers softened Cairo’s late-afternoon golden light as it reached across the bed. He remembered the square of traditional embroidery gilt-framed over the bed, he remembered the ramadan lanterns fashioned into sconces, he remembered that scent more than anything… _God_ , he remembered. 

Perhaps it was the influence of his dream that was making him sentimental. It surprised him. In recent years he was more used to remembering nothing, or one bad thing. Now the aggregate of small pleasures he’d amassed through his life seemed present in every moment. And the crowning pleasure of the moment was the smartphone lying on a pillow, tucked slightly under the bedspread so it wouldn’t be visible from the door. Pine threw himself on the bed, picking it up and pressing the home button. It had been set up without a password, one number in the contacts and only two apps in addition to the presets: an encrypted texting service and a secure drop folder labelled Autumn. He created an eight digit pin rather than iris, thumbprint or facial recognition, all of which could be cracked using his dead body. He sent a long text message to Angela Burr, he hoped, and deleted the sent message. Then he opened the grey dossier, spread the papers carefully on the bed and began taking photos. 

When he had delivered the photos to the Autumn folder and reordered the pages neatly in the dossier, he slid it, with the phone, into his room safe before taking a quick shower, trimming his ragged nails and shaving his face. The absence of dried sweat, dust, and stubble made him feel more naked than he had in some time. As the fog cleared from the full length mirror across from the bath he looked at his body, turned and looked from the sides, from the back. He’d been a pretty child, and had become a handsome man with a minimum of awkwardness in between. The disharmony between his easy good looks and the terrible discomfort of _being_ him had always been hard to reconcile. Even now, in this rhapsodic mood, he thought his reflection looked like a stranger he hoped to know someday. He smiled an innocent ‘can I help you?’ Then a flirtatious ’let me help you with that.’ Then he grimaced at himself and left the bathroom.

He had about twenty minutes now to make the rest of his arrangements before he was due in the bar to meet Roper, Langbourne, and Freddie Hamid. He slipped the phone in his inner jacket pocket, locked the safe, and headed downstairs to the kitchen to speak with an old friend.


	3. An Evening at the Nefertiti Hotel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is much to do before the night is over. Jonathan Pine is discrete, gracious, hardworking, observant. Richard Roper is in trouble. 
> 
> And what on earth happens to Freddie Hamid?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a completed story, one more chapter to be posted next weekend. I hope you've been enjoying it. I welcome comments and questions.
> 
> I didn't use a non-con archive warning, but I want to say that characters have sex here for a lot of reasons that are not romantic or honest. There are power dynamics that go beyond fun bedroom stuff at work. Please don't read if that turns you off.

Freddie Hamid was just the sort of daft, elitist prick that if you showed up in a bespoke suit he would wonder til the end of time how he knew you and never realize that it was you who served him champagne on his birthday two years in a row, and you who held his head steady over the toilet after he’d driven his guests away in embarrassment. You who cleaned the last of his girlfriend’s blood and possessions out of her hotel suite after the police had done with their ‘investigation.’ 

The first half of the money had been transferred without incident to Andrew Birch’s account. Freddie stood by the wall and watched the grownups make the deal, his father, Barghati, and Kouyami presiding. Boredom and resentment played across his face unconsciously; he would be an impudent child forever. At least _my_ daddy let me sit at the table, thought Pine darkly. And at no point did he look at, touch or adjust the phone —set to record— in his pocket, though it felt terribly heavy. The meeting adjourned with light applause and a round of wary handshakes, to be reconvened the following noon in the meeting room of the Hatshepsut suite, then transported to an unspecified location. He knew from a map in the dossier that their destination was the deepwater docks in Port Said. There they would welcome their cargo ashore. Then all would go their merry way, and Andrew Birch would be a very. Wealthy. Man.

***

Back at the Nefertiti bar, Pine excused himself to the restroom after two drinks and waited a screaming eternity for his three-hour audio file to upload to Autumn. When he returned, Roper and Langbourne were starting to lose interest in taking Freddie’s money at the roulette table. Langbourne gave him the awkward smile you earn when you spend twenty minutes in the toilet, but Roper seemed to have made a more lascivious interpretation of his absence. Freshening up, perhaps? Pine had been covering his flustered feeling with a triumphant, world-owning look, but with Roper ogling his crotch, he had to reverse course and hide his triumph with flustered embarrassment. He’d never found it so easy to play on another person’s emotions. Had Roper forgotten about the leak to British Intelligence, or was he just so sure that he’d outmaneuvered them? Did he think his inside contacts had done their work and patched the leak? Pine couldn’t know, but the deep sense of certainty that had guided him since his powerful dream the night before was undisturbed; a base tone he could pick out even as the risks he took piqued his fear and roiled his libido. 

“Andrew, my boy,” Roper drawled, “I want to buy you a drink,” and he sauntered to the bar, abandoning his chips on the table.

“Thank you, sir.” Pine followed under Langbourne’s gaze. Roper handed him a neat whiskey and sipped from his own, watching Pine with a mock stern glare. “Thank you,” he said again, his native good manners converging effortlessly with his obsequious performance.

“Oh, you can thank me later. Now I want you to take Freddie home before he causes any trouble. His presence is unfortunately necessary tomorrow, and we don’t want delays.”

“Of course.” Pine spoke quietly. Roper quirked his eyebrow, as if he was surprised that Pine hadn’t called him Daddy in the middle of a crowded bar, but the expression quickly passed.

“When you’re back, I want you to bring that folder to my room and wait for me. Frisky will let you in. I may be some time. If you’re a good, patient boy and do as I ask, perhaps you can show me some more of your hidden talents.” The temperature of Roper’s gaze rose as he spoke —almost to himself— as if the scene in his mind were playing out on Pine’s face. Pine felt himself respond to this predatory intensity— licking his open lips, lifting his chin to show his throat— as silence thrummed between them. His hand and drink were forgotten on the bar as an almost unbearable heat trickled from his face down his collar and spread across the front of his torso to collect in his groin. Every vulnerable part of his body was blushing with want, and his strategic need to perform this very feeling created a heady feedback loop. It was the most total arousal he could ever remember feeling. This was how he’d come under Roper’s gaze last night in Corky’s bed, he realized. Fulfilling and performing his urge to submit. What a thing to discover, and what a time to discover it. 

A commotion rose at the roulette table and the moment broke. Roper finished his whiskey in a long pull and gave Pine a light shove on his heated chest. “Go get him out of here,” he growled, gesturing at Freddie, who was leaning half over the table to bark at the croupier, hands displacing wagers as he steadied himself. Langbourne, who was ineffectually pulling at Freddie’s sleeve, had been glancing at Pine and Roper with curiosity. Now Roper headed out of the bar. Pine finished his drink slowly and scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to return some ordinary expression to his flushed and sensitive features. Then he strode across the room and began the familiar, delicate task of containing a belligerent guest.

***

Pine hadn’t known what to expect from himself when he was finally alone with Freddie Hamid in his palatial home. He half carried, half dragged Freddie to a poolside recliner and let his half-conscious body slip ungently down. The loathing that had pressed on him from the first moment of their reunion had soured into something more like disgust. Bumbling, brutal Freddie, still trying to guess in what yacht or gentlemen’s club he’d seen ‘Birch’ before, would never give him the satisfaction of remorse. He probably wouldn’t even be satisfyingly frightened if Pine threatened his life: his will to live was too feeble and obscure, sapped by drunken luxury. That Sophie had had to fear him was what most galled Pine as he looked down on Freddie’s childlike face. He exhaled and sat heavily beside him, pulling the phone from his jacket pocket. He pressed record and didn’t even bother to put it out of sight as he shook Freddie awake. 

“Freddie, tell me about the meeting tomorrow.”

***

Upstairs in his little haven, room 3323, Pine tried to prepare for he knew not what. True to their names, Tabby was keeping tabs on Roper downstairs and Frisky was very likely to frisk him when he turned up to the Hatshepsut suite. Youssuf had given him the updated master code for the room safes: it changed every day, and in theory only the manager on duty would know it, but Pine had told him where it might be found and Youssuf was resourceful. A courier had delivered documents from a handcuffed briefcase to Roper this afternoon, delaying their departure to the Hamids’ by five minutes as Roper disappeared upstairs. Whatever it was Pine would need it, and it was in Roper’s safe, Pine was sure. With the code he’d be able to see it, but without the phone he wouldn’t be able to prove it. He tried several different methods of hiding his phone in his jacket, then trousers, unsuccessfully before he slid it face forward down the front of his pants. He was entrusting his safety to the hope that Frisky wasn’t a completist in his searches. He fiddled with his tailored flat-front trousers, only partially able to obscure his distorted groin before buttoning his jacket, picking up the grey folder and his room key, sighing and heading downstairs.

***

Frisky was standing before the carved wood entryway to Roper’s suite, looking as hostile and vacant as he ever had. He grunted in response to Pine’s ‘good evening’ and passed his hands down Pine’s arms, outside and inside his jacket, then down the buttocks, legs, and attentively around both ankles. But despite his face being inches away from Pine’s oddly rectangular bulge, he left the area undisturbed. He grabbed the dossier from Pine and flipped quickly through its pages before unlocking the ornate door. Pine stepped inside and heard the lock click. The grief of this room was too heavy; he felt unbalanced. He stood still and forced himself to catalog the many harmless, ordinary visits he’d paid to guests in this room before the last. His mind was clamoring for haste but he controlled his movements, measured his speed. 

He laid down the dossier on the bar and slipped off his shoes, placing them in a corner by the door. Just outside the bedroom door he found the safe in an armoire, pulled it laboriously away from the back wall and pressed the manufacturer’s button, then entered the ten-digit daily code, and the little heavy door popped open. Inside was a single manila envelope with an embossed certificate. He pulled it out and read it in surprise. It was the Certificate of Ownership of a cargo ship, but the port of call was listed as Alexandria. His mind spun as he fished the phone from his pants and propped the certificate on top of the safe to photograph it. With the intel he’d sent to Burr, surely Interpol or joint intelligence would be preparing to seize cargo in the Port of Said tomorrow. Roper had played the same game again, waiting for his boy to make a mistake, jump too soon. He locked the certificate away and budged the safe back into its familiar place, easily found because its heavy feet had pressed grooves into the teak shelf it sat on. He calmed his frantic fingers and dropped the photos into Autumn before deleting them from his phone. 

Then he had a dilemma: Frisky might not have given him a complete once-over, but Roper was likely to be more thorough. He’d already sent the intelligence, yes, but if he was discovered now the intelligence would be binned again. And he would likely die. He couldn’t guess where Roper’s hands would rove, what they’d be looking for, and he couldn’t reasonably leave the phone anywhere in the room. A desperate idea popped into his mind and made him laugh. It would have to do. He took off his jacket and undressed, making an unobtrusive pile of clothing on top of his shoes in the corner. He slipped the phone into his trouser pocket beneath his folded jacket and shirt. He slid off his pants and socks as well, and placed his bare feet hesitantly on the cold marble floor. This was as close as he’d felt to Sophie since her death, both her life and her loss. Roper was coming; he could feel, then hear his approach. Fear and excitement prickled his bare skin. Pine stepped to the center of the cavernous parlor room, turned his back to the door and stood in parade’s rest, then bowed his head. 

***

Roper exchanged some murmured remarks with Frisky, then the key turned. The door opened and closed. Pine tensed his buttocks and gripped his hands, but otherwise made no move. He knew Roper had spotted him when he heard a sharp breath through teeth. Then silence, but for the advancing click of heels. Suddenly very close, Roper spoke low into his ear.

“At ease, soldier.” Roper was not a military man; Pine was already at ease. He said nothing, lifted his head. Roper moved to stand in front of him, and the skin of Pine’s back was suddenly gooseflesh. “Frisky tells me he didn’t hear a peep from you. Is that so? Have you been perfectly still and perfectly patient in here, my boy?”

“Yes, sir.” 

Roper gripped his chin, thumb pressing a heavy line along Pine’s smooth jaw. “Try that again.”

“Yes, Daddy.” Pine enunciated. He was learning to work the magic in the word, the spell that evoked masculine power with the voice of total vulnerability. Roper let go and smiled.

“And did you bring your folder, Jonathan?” He asked, as if to a child.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“And did you study very hard what was in that folder?”

“I did.” 

Roper appraised him, then walked toward the bar sink and washed his hands. He dried them, then opened the grey folder and casually paged through its contents. When he began to speak the tone was all lightness.

“You know, before Jed left, she did the naughtiest thing. She took the knickers she’d been wearing, and she put them…” —here he turned toward Pine and paused to reach inside his jacket— “in my pocket! I didn’t notice til we were at Hamid’s house, and I couldn’t very well do anything about it there!” 

He laughed, pulling out a handful of peachy lace. Pine’s heart leapt at the sight of them: she couldn’t have known that he would see them, this was not a message from her to him. But they _were_ the knickers he’d glimpsed below her white dress as he’d held her against the wall and pulled their gusset roughly to one side, the one time they’d made love in those few moments they’d stolen. 

“And do you know what she said to me when she left for the airport? She said ‘Who’s going to take care of you while I’m gone, Dicky?’” Roper gave Pine a deadpan look. “And I must say, it’s a big job, Jonathan. A big position to fill. Frankly, I’m not sure you’re up to the task.” 

Pine knew exactly how he was supposed to respond to this provocation, and he was ready to, but he was surprised at how badly he _wanted_ to prove himself to Roper in this way, as he had in all others. He lifted his chin proudly, angry determination in his eyes. Roper chuckled. 

“That’s the spirit! Well, let’s see if you’re a fit. Put these on.” He tossed the panties lightly at Pine, who caught them and squeezed them tightly for a moment, as if he could absorb some essence of Jed into himself. His heavy cock began to rise, and Roper watched it keenly. “Go on, then. You’ve never _looked_ shy.”

Pine folded forward and stepped carefully into the delicate garment. Even if he hadn’t been meaning to put on a show, they were narrow and fragile enough that he had to shimmy side to side to work them all the way up his muscular legs. They were very much Jed’s style, high-waisted and low around the leg but sheer, at once intending to cover everything and hide nothing. He pulled them up gingerly over his erection til it was caught against his belly. He had to tuck his bollocks forward so that they bulged obscenely against the tight screen of lace. The fine elastic came nearly to his navel, and sinched his waist tightly. With the knickers firmly in place, he passed his hands once over his arse and hips, then quickly up his cock for a little relief. The lace roughed his palms. Roper tutted at this but he seemed momentarily distracted from his role of disciplinarian. 

“My, my,” he said wonderingly. Then louder, more certain, “Turn around. Yes. Reach your arms up. Now bend over.” 

Pine went down as far as he could, hands to his ankles, and softened one knee to give his hips a playful tilt. He began to run his hands up the backs of his legs when Roper scolded him: “Stay still! Mustn’t give it all away like a common slut.” 

He heard Roper settle into one of the deep leather chairs, and he focused on staying absolutely still. It wasn’t cold, but his skin prickled. 

“Stand up. Turn to face me. Now come over here.” Roper slid down in his seat and widened his legs, gesturing between them. Pine stepped between his knees, arms by his sides, awaiting instruction.

“Your Daddy is tired, Jonathan. He’s had a long day. Jed’s not here, but if she were, you know what she’d do what would make me happy? She would get down on her knees and take my cock in her mouth and suck it for as long as I like. She’s _very_ good. Remarkable. And _soft_. How soft is your mouth, my boy? Let me have it.” He gestured at the floor, and Pine knelt carefully on the cold marble. He gestured at his groin, and Pine reached for his belt in a show of eagerness, which elicited another chuckle. Roper’s only assistance was to lift his hips when Pine slid his trousers down his thighs. Otherwise he leaned back and watched from under hooded lids as Pine’s careful hands undressed and freed his cock. 

Roper’s cock was sturdy-looking, straight as an arrow and thick as Pine’s grip. The bell-end was almost free of the foreskin, and a pearl of come was glistening in the slit. Pine was glad for yesterday’s practice; this was a more daunting challenge, and he’d remembered some of the finer points of technique only halfway through blowing Corky. He grasped Roper’s cock and leaned forward, but Roper pushed his hand away.

“Hands behind your back. I want to know what your _mouth_ can do. No cheating. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Daddy.” 

Pine slid forward and clasped his forearms behind his back. He held Roper’s gaze as he licked his lips and stretched them around the head of Roper’s cock. Roper hummed and seemed to melt into his chair. Pine hummed in return as he slid down the shaft. Roper’s hands found the scruff of his neck, the place he’d been grabbing and pushing all day. Even this light pressure now evoked Pine’s urge to surrender. As Roper’s cock reached the back of his mouth, Pine softened and let it slide into his throat. 

“My _boy_ ,” Roper groaned, and pulled Pine off before pressing him back down again. Pine allowed himself to be moved, to be penetrated, breathing on the upstroke and letting the wetness of his mouth soak his chin and Roper’s thatch of greying curls. The sounds of wet flesh on flesh and labored breathing echoed in the large room. His own erection pressed against scratchy lace and rubbed lightly against his abdomen at the rhythm Roper set. He was aroused by his own endurance and strength, by the picture of himself he held in his mind, by the private power he was gathering through submission. He was even aroused by his attraction to Roper, and the complication it added to his cold hatred. Roper’s deep, booming voice, his gimlet eyes that saw every weakness, his slinky, wiry body that appeared so at ease in any garment, any company. It all turned him on: Pine was back in the feedback loop. He hollowed his cheeks and stared up through his lashes as his head bobbed. It had the desired effect.

“You know,” Roper said breathlessly, “you _look_ like her when you do that. Both of you looking up at me with your big doe eyes and your pretty pink lips….” He was speeding up. “And I think to myself ‘every thought in your clever young mind is inches from my cock right now. Every idea or memory you have.’ And now you’ll remember this, too.” He groaned and held Pine’s head by the curls with both hands as he began to thrust into his mouth. Pine was careful to maintain his hands behind his back, to keep his mouth soft and wet, teeth hidden. He was still aware of being judged, perhaps now more than ever. As Roper’s come hit the back of Pine’s mouth, he swallowed quickly, again and again. The bitterness was clarifying. Roper was burying Pine’s face in his lap now, and he moaned high and loud. It was a momentary, unguarded sound that ceased as soon as his hips stopped thrusting. He held him still as his cock softened in Pine’s mouth, and Pine had the sense that it was out of embarrassment, a wish for privacy more than control, that his face was pinned down now. 

When Roper released him —none too gently — Pine sat back on his heels to catch his breath. His chest was heaving, but he made his expression as neutral as he could with swollen lips and a wet face. His steady eyes watched Roper tuck his flaccid cock back into his trousers, fiddle his belt buckle closed, and straighten his shirt tails. By the time he’d put his clothes to right his face had regained its sardonic equanimity. 

“You are turning out to be a very surprising young man. I suspect there’s more you’ll… show… me…” Leaning forward, Roper ran the tip of his index finger from Pine’s abused lower lip down his chin, then from his sternum toward his navel before sitting back decisively. “Now listen. If I were to tell you that you’re a good boy, Jonathan, you’d just go back to your room, have a wank and call it a night. And I don’t want that. I want you _hungry_. When we meet the buyers tomorrow, you will be wearing those knickers. You will wait for me to take them off of you, and you will not come until I let you. Which I will _only_ do if you are _very_ , very good and do _exactly_ as I say. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, Daddy.” He sounded rough and strange; someone else’s voice.

“Now go and rest up. Big day tomorrow.” Roper stayed seated and watched as Pine rose painstakingly from the floor, half an erection still trapped against peach lace. He didn’t give Roper the satisfaction of a grimace this time. Instead, he put a little swing in his step as he walked to the corner to dress. Apart from making his arse look saucy and reminding him of her, Jed’s panties solved a sticky little problem that had been nagging at him. Now he bent over his pile of clothing and stuffed his own white y-fronts into his trouser pocket before pulling the trousers on. The outline of his phone was obscured behind a bunched up wad of cotton. He added his socks for good measure, and slid his shoes on bare. 

When he was dressed he turned to see Roper standing and walking back toward the bedroom. The round was over. He’d been dismissed. Frisky took one look at his face and snorted, but otherwise gave him no trouble as he wandered, dreamlike, down the deep blue corridor to the elevator.

***  
When he closed the door to his room, Pine’s first impulse was to grab his cock and give it the few rough tugs he would need for relief after the agonizing buildup of the day. But when he unfastened his trousers and pushed his hand in, Jed’s lacy panties gave him pause. He would hate to tear them, and after Roper’s command he was half afraid to take them off, though they were terrifically uncomfortable. The prickling sense of intuition that had been guiding him since his dream seemed to say _keep playing the game. Follow the rules._ Pine ran a fingertip along the length of his erection, too lightly to push or pull, and thought yes, ok. The game isn’t over yet. He stripped down to just the lace and scrubbed his face and teeth before climbing between soft cotton sheets. Sleep was slow to come with the warm alertness that coursed through his body and the rub and catch of different fabrics on his sensitized skin.


	4. Closing the Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In room 3004 they had laid out what felt like half a plan; there were so many maybes and question marks that Pine couldn’t even guess where he’d be at 1pm that day, or his odds of survival. 
> 
> He hadn’t mentioned that his intelligence had been gathered under the force of a dream, or that he’d gained his targets’ dubious trust through sexual hijinx. Perhaps they’d been reluctant to question the remarkable stream of verified information he’d been supplying. 
> 
> They certainly hadn’t pressed him on his strategy when he assured them that he could divert Roper alone if they succeeded in delaying the Hamids’ arrival to the hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed it, I certainly have. I welcome comments and questions. 
> 
> As ever, I didn't use a non-con archive warning, but I want to say that characters have sex here for a lot of reasons that are not romantic or honest. There are power dynamics that go beyond fun bedroom stuff at work. Please don't read if that turns you off.

Pine woke in the dark to a nearby mosque’s muezzin singing the day’s first call to prayer over a crackling public address system. When the sky began to lighten minutes later he could see the familiar minaret ringed with loudspeakers, and beyond it countless others receding in the distance, waking Cairo’s faithful and unfaithful alike. He stretched his limbs, discovering aches in his neck and back and bruises on his knees. His body was exhausted, but his heart surged as the sky brightened from indigo to rose to peach over this long-missed view. He was washed and dressed before the sun breached the horizon, Jed’s knickers snugly concealed under his favorite cotton suit. In Majorca, when Roper was having him dressed and fitted like a doll and he could never have anticipated this return, he’d picked twill in the richest blue because it reminded him of Egypt, and of walking the corridors of the Nefertiti hotel. 

When he leaned against the window sill and concentrated on his dream-sense, he pictured a circle closing. The certainty he’d enjoyed for two nights felt less exultant this morning: he was sure he had not far to go, that soon he’d be completing what he’d been moved to do. But was he approaching a beginning or an end? He’d assumed when he’d first woken from the dream in the Haven that he was on a path to victory, or else why would he feel so fearless and brazen? But now all he could perceive was the next right step, and all he could feel was the conviction to take it, not confidence in where it would lead. 

On his phone there was a message from his single contact, timestamped 15 minutes ago. They had surely also been woken by the azan. The text simply read 3004, a room at the west end of this floor. He deleted it and placed the phone in his safe before leaving the room. Time to find out if he could count on any help.

***

The sight of Angela Burr, half-awake and immensely pregnant, made Pine laugh with joy. As soon as she pushed the door shut, he threw his arms around her and buried his face in her neck. She somehow _smelled_ of England, and her small, strong body gave him courage. 

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” he murmured as he released his grip on her.

“I should imagine so! You’ve been waging a one man campaign out there, we can’t believe how well you’ve done!” She kept a light hand on his forearm and gestured to a man Pine hadn’t seen, standing in the doorway of the bathroom. “Jonathan Pine, this is Joel Steadman, American Enforcement Agency.”

Steadman crossed the room to give him a finger-crushing handshake, and patted his arm firmly with the other hand. “Good to meet you, Pine.”

“You as well, sir.”

“Please, call me Joel.” He sat at the table where two laptops and a tablet were sprouting dongles of every description, and a screen showed a dotted line bisecting the Aegean Sea. “Now, we’ve been keeping tabs on the cargo ever since it left Istanbul, thanks to your intelligence. And we were able to move our search and seizure team from Port Said to Alexandria before dawn today.” His accent was broad and mild. 

“We should be able to seize and hold the assets with help from the Egyptian Port Authority until we can finalize the charges against Roper, “ said Burr, “but here in Cairo we’re a little understaffed at the moment.” She gestured at the three of them with an ironic smile. “I’m working on warrants for Roper and Langbourne, and if I can file them with Interpol, we may be able to raid the meeting before they catch wind that the assets are frozen. But I’m afraid your work is not done yet.”

“How can I help?” Pine sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward.

***

An hour later Pine poured himself a cup of tea from the lobby’s breakfast service. The domed ceiling and pillars gleamed white, and a sweet breeze stirred the leaves of enormous palms. He served two pistachio biscuits to his saucer and sat by the open garden doors. In room 3004 they had laid out what felt like half a plan; there were so many maybes and question marks that Pine couldn’t even guess where he’d be at 1pm that day, or his odds of survival. He hadn’t mentioned that his intelligence had been gathered under the force of a dream, or that he’d gained his targets' dubious trust through sexual hijinx. Perhaps they’d been reluctant to question the remarkable stream of verified information he’d been supplying. They certainly hadn’t pressed him on his strategy when he assured them that he could divert Roper alone if they succeeded in delaying the Hamids’ arrival to the hotel. And if everything went the way they all hoped, Pine wouldn’t see either of them again until it was all over. Roper would be down soon enough, and Pine would do what he had to do. For now, here was a sliver of solitary peace. He breathed the fragrant vapor of his tea and dipped a biscuit.

***

Barghati hung up the phone— there was an “unavoidable delay” at the Hamid residence. The fleet of black sedans had been idling in the Nefertiti roundabout for half an hour. The assembled company of buyers and sellers, lawyers, translators and financiers, were starting to look at their watches despite the charming conversation Andrew Birch had gamely kept afloat. Hamid Sr. had suggested, and Barghati relayed, that a recess of an hour would be most appropriate, at which point the group would reassemble in the lobby and depart, inch’allah. Men rose heavily from the deep, low seats and left in twos and threes. Several still hovered near the bar, where a silent staff member from the kitchen kept a vigil over the coffeepot and tray of dwindling zalabyah. His nametag read Youssuf, and if he and Andrew Birch exchanged a glance during Barghati’s announcement, well. Nobody saw. 

Roper was walking Kouyami to the door with jolly assurances when Pine approached him. He shook Kouyami’s hand and gave his warmest regards til the afternoon. Then he put a collegial arm around Roper’s shoulder and drew their heads together for a brief business confab. Or it looked that way. 

“Haven’t I been good, Daddy? Please let me show you.” Pine said under his breath, benign smile wide on his face. 

He felt Roper straighten up, then pull the phone out of his coat to check the time before replying.

“Right you are, Andrew! We shall have to discuss it.” Roper announced to the room. Langbourne, alone by the door, was looking at the pair of them like he was anxious to join their conversation. Pine dropped his arm from Roper’s neck, but Roper slid his own hand to the small of Pine’s back. Almost casual, but it was under the jacket, and Pine could tell it had caught Langbourne’s eye. 

“Listen Sandy, can you see to it that none of our guests stray too far from the hotel? Andrew and I have a matter to discuss before we leave.” Pine was watching Roper’s miscalculation hit the ground in real time. Langbourne’s expression hardened, but Roper didn’t catch it: he’d forgotten to be worried about the opinions of good old Sandy. Pine made just a small adjustment to his stance; Roper couldn’t see the possessiveness and intimacy of his body language, but Langbourne could. Pine watched a series of unpleasant emotions jostle across Langbourne’s inexpressive face and stifled a smile. He wasn’t sure it would be enough to push Langbourne to flip if agents of the law were to detain him, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. 

“Of course.” Langbourne responded coolly and turned without another word. 

Roper’s fingers were playing around the waistband of Pine’s pants. He pushed Pine toward the door that led to his bedroom, heedless of the remaining guests’ speculative looks. Roper was a god of war. He took what he wanted. 

***

Roper closed the bedroom door and turned on Pine. There was no more mirth in his expression, just voracious want. It almost frightened Pine, who had come to expect tighter control. He shucked Pine’s jacket from his shoulders and dropped it on the floor, then attacked the buttons of his shirt. Pine lifted his hands to help, and Roper slapped them away, finishing and dropping the shirt before loosing Pine’s belt with two violent tugs. He permitted Pine to toe out of his shoes and wriggle his vest off before Roper pushed the trousers from off his hips and stepped back to take him in.

“Good boy. Good,” he breathed and gripped Pine’s cock hard through the lacy peach panties. “Go and get on the bed. Hands and knees.” Pine did as he was told. The bed was crisply made, and big as a room. His hands and knees sunk into the deep comforter, which was indeed comforting after his time on the floor last night. He widened his knees and arched his back, then held still as he heard Roper approach. Roper stood to one side of the bed, and when Pine glanced back he saw he had taken off his jacket, but was otherwise still clothed. The first touch surprised him in its gentleness; it was a fingertip tracing the arc of his arse cheek under the leg band, along the red impression the tight elastic had created. The finger moved meditatively, first along one cheek, then the other, from hip to bollock. Then both palms came to cup his arse and knead his flesh.

“I woke up this morning thinking of you, Jonathan. Thinking of how beautifully you’ve been working for me. How well you serve. It surprised me. I said I saw you that night in Corky’s tent. Saw what you need. Well, I saw something I need as well.” Pine had never heard this tone in Roper’s voice before. It was raw and low, no irony to it. He doubted Roper could have spoken this way face to face. “My god, the expression on your face. So pure in the middle of that squalid scene. Like a lotus growing out of the muck.” 

Roper pulled Pine’s knickers down to his thighs, and Pine’s skin sang in itchy relief. Roper passed his palms over the bared skin and then with no further preamble he buried his face in Pine’s arse. Pine gasped, but didn’t budge. Roper’s tongue laved him from top to bottom, and teased his hole almost frantically. His broad hands pulled Pine’s cheeks wider as his tongue began to ease its own passage in. Pine was gasping and pressing back against Roper’s passionate kiss. He’d experienced this act rarely enough, and never with such gusto. He badly wanted to grab his cock, but needed both hands to hold up against the onslaught. Roper was moaning as he licked and probed, and Pine could feel a bead of spit trickle down the back of his bollocks. 

In the past several days, with his flickering sense of premonition, of being guided through snares and traps, the first genuine shock he’d felt was the touch of Roper’s mouth. That touch had seemed to signal a change. Now the dream feeling was beginning to overpower his body. Whatever was meant to happen would happen here, now, in this room. He felt light and golden. He let out a keening moan. 

“ _Yes_. Let me hear you.” Roper pulled his face away to speak and slid a finger into Pine’s arse. It entered easily. Roper licked at the juncture of finger and arsehole before pressing another in and nailing Pine’s prostate in a single, deft movement. 

Pine, a dispositionally quiet lover, emitted an involuntary chant of “oh, oh, oh, oh” in time with Roper’s thrusting fingers. If anyone was still in the outer room, they would no longer wonder what this private meeting was all about. A third finger and he buried his face in the bed, rocking his hips in a desperate search for friction. His cock was streaming precome, too hard and high to even rub against the panties that still bound his thighs. His hole, no longer reticent, was grasping for more. Roper stilled Pine’s hips and pulled his fingers out one at a time. Then he wiped them on the bed and gave his arse two playful slaps. 

“Turn over.”

Pine lolled onto his back. Roper unthreaded the panties from his long legs and cast them on the bed beside him. 

“Hold your legs apart.”

Pine grabbed his shins and held his legs open. Roper spared a long look for the body spread before him, and passed a light finger across Pine’s pliant arsehole. 

“Stay.” Then he disappeared into the bathroom.

Pine could hear him undressing, running the faucet, searching around. He lay on his back perfectly still and watched a shimmer on the ceiling from a glass of water on a mirrored tray. As a breeze passed through the open window, it troubled the water’s surface and the reflection trembled over the bed. His mind drifted. If Hamid had placed that call to Barghati, it meant the Hamids had been taken into custody. Burr would have made Freddie’s father call to allay suspicion. If all had gone well, the rest of the buyers’ teams would have been detained in the lobby by Joint Intelligence and Egyptian police. But the whole sting hinged on this: Youssuf was to delay Langbourne upstairs until Steadman and Burr could apprehend him. They would show him a warrant for his own arrest, and allude to some incriminating intelligence. They’d offer him a deal: give up Roper to save your own skin. If they were very lucky Langbourne wouldn’t guess that they were powerless without his confession. If they got Langbourne, they would come for Roper. Until then, Roper would need to be kept occupied. 

Pine knew those gears were turning at this very moment, outside in the world. But the light dancing on the ceiling, the curls of leg hair under his fingertips, the deep rhythm of his breath, were all much more real to him. His body was alert and taut with arousal, but his mind felt panoramic, abstract. Roper began to speak through the open door casually, as if they often shared a bed and bath.

“I had to filch a rubber from Tabby this morning. I wouldn’t even have bothered with the thing, but for Corky’s infernal little prick in your arse. We’ll have time to take care of that later.”

He emerged naked, face wet, with a bottle of the Nefertiti’s own rose-scented body lotion and a foil packet in one hand. He was lotioning his considerable erection with the other. His eyes roved over Pine’s open body again, and the hungry intensity returned. He rolled the rubber on before squeezing another dollop of cream in his palm and coating the rubber. The smell was the same as in Pine’s room, the same as a hundred nights of pleasure with another’s body or his own. The air was saturated with erotic memory; countless faces, strokes and sighs. As Roper smeared cool, fragrant cream around Pine’s entrance, Pine’s whole body hummed. 

Roper gripped his own cock and rubbed the thick head along Pine’s ass until it found its notch. He spread his other palm flat on Pine’s chest and rested his weight there, forcing air from Pine’s lungs. Pine’s eyes widened helplessly as Roper sunk past his tender rings of muscle. 

Stretch and push, grip and slide, they worked their bodies together in a hush of held breath til Roper’s hips rested on Pine’s thighs. Roper’s gaze felt as heavy on his face as his hand felt on Pine’s heart. Pine felt his own expression soften and open under the weight of that look, just as his tight passage was accepting Roper’s trespass by degrees.

“So much to share with you, Jonathan,” Roper’s free hand was tracing Pine’s neck, the side of his face. “More than with Corky, more than with Jed…” he trailed off as he began to pull back experimentally. They groaned together when Roper slid back in. When his hips began to rock, he spoke again, urgently.

“I see myself in you. Your hunger. Your determination. When I was your age, if I’d had someone….” Instead, he shook his head and started to move with more force. “But the difference…between you and me…is that you need to serve… someone more _powerful_.” 

The truth Roper had just spoken detonated in Pine’s brain. Roper was wrong about _which_ power, but it was exactly that, to serve a higher power, which gave Pine’s life meaning, or in its absence took meaning away. He felt Sophie close by, though they’d never shared this bed. He felt the circle closing, the dream coming to a head, footsteps in the corridor. His body was radiant. 

Roper was fucking in earnest now, nothing left to say but “there, my good boy,” followed by deep, shuddering groans. His eyes were half closed, his head bowed low. Sweat gathered where their bodies met and trickled down. There was a knock on the door. Roper heard nothing, fucked on. The scent of roses hung in the air. Pine pulled his focus back from the open, blissful expanse to a single bright line down the front of his body. His erection ached for release, casting threads of precome across his stomach as he received each deepening thrust. 

He let go of his shins and clasped his hands on either side of Roper’s face, wrapping his legs tightly around Roper’s waist and locking his ankles. It was all one smooth movement, so fast that Roper didn’t even have time to resist. Their eyes met, and there was a second knock at the door. Pine watched shock bloom into outrage, then wither to betrayal before he pulled Roper’s face to his and seized a deep, commanding kiss. He rolled his hips so that his long-neglected cock rubbed wetly against Roper’s abdomen. Once, twice, three times and he was spilling, tongue deep in Roper’s mouth, and in his ears were rushing waves and the circle had closed, and the taste on his lips was sweeter than revenge, it was justice.

***

Hands pulled Roper from off and out of Pine's body. His arms and legs dropped to the bed haphazardly. He lay still, making no sense of the sounds he heard, the movement at his vision’s periphery, as the beating of his heart slowly slowed and the clamoring in his head subsided. Uncertain time passed.

When he finally stirred it was because of an absence: the force of his dream was gone. There was no special alertness to his mind, or sensitivity to his skin. He had no idea what was happening, or what to do next. He felt exhausted and cold. And extremely naked. 

He glanced around and saw Steadman standing on the far side of the room, looking resolutely out the window. The sticky mess on his chest had begun to liquify and drip down his sides; he dropped his head back on the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment. 

“Ah, there he is,” called Burr brightly as she stepped out of the bathroom with a towel in her hand. “We were worried about you, Jonathan! Thought you might have come your brains out permanently.” She tossed the towel gently over his groin, and he quickly wiped himself up. 

“Well I must say, this was not what we expected to find when we broke down the door with Cairo’s chief of police.” Her tone was still laughing, but then she sobered up. “Really, though, Jonathan. I think we can leave this out of the final report, but I didn’t know how far you’d taken it. Are you all right?” She rested a hand on his shoulder, and he silently absorbed its warmth for a moment, then met her eyes.

“…I’m a bit tired.” His voice was small.

“I’m sure you must be. Poor boy. I’m afraid you can’t sleep here, though, the suite is still a crime scene.” She gestured vaguely at his body. “Why don’t you go back to your room and have a wash up, take a nap. We can talk in the evening when you’ve had some rest.” She gestured toward the bathroom. “Go on and get dressed. I put your clothes in there, though I couldn’t find your pants anywhere, sorry.” She glanced at the ball of peach lace that lay beside him, but didn’t press the point. 

Pine looked up at her gratefully and nodded. He took a deep breath before rolling to his side and pressing himself up to seated. His feet recoiled at the cold marble before acquiescing. He wrapped the towel around his waist as he stood gingerly and padded across the room. Steadman continued to be very interested in the view of the courtyard.

He wiped and dressed absently, foregoing a rinse here in favor of the long shower behind a locked door that awaited him upstairs. When he was clothed he stood for a moment and glanced himself over. His suit looked different in the mirror, or perhaps it was his face that looked different. It looked flat, like a surface without depth. He didn’t linger.

In the bedroom Burr was taking photos and Steadman was typing rapidly on his phone. Pine drifted for the door.

“You’ll be glad to know that Major Corkoran’s been arrested in Spain.”

“Ah. And…”

“Jed Marshall was detained for questioning and released. We arranged with Spanish intelligence to house her in Madrid while the investigation continues. She plans to return to the US when she’s able. I have her mobile. She’ll be expecting to hear from you.” Angela smiled and handed him a slip of paper. “Now go get some rest.”

As he reached the door a hand on his left shoulder stopped him. He turned and met Steadman’s intent gaze. “You did good, Pine. You gave us what we needed to bring Roper down. I’m proud of you.” Steadman patted his right upper arm, then released him. For the first time since the dream began, or perhaps in his entire life, Pine had absolutely no idea what expression was on his face. He nodded once, and then walked out of the room, out of the Hatshepsut suite, into the maze of brilliant blue corridors. 

***

Soon he would wash, he would sleep, he would speak with Jed. His heart lifted thinking of holding her close with nothing to hide from anyone, of hours stretching between them and no threats or enemies. He would hear her sweet, low voice in his ear soon, but not yet. Not yet. For now he simply walked, dishevelled hair and rumpled suit, breezy in his pantsless trousers, with no one to serve and no one to be. It was as if he’d stepped into the time before he’d ever heard of Dicky Roper. Before he’d ever met Sophie, or heard her whisper her true name. Before he’d gone to war. A great power had moved through him. He’d walked the shining path that he’d been shown, and now he was free.


End file.
